More Space on Your iPhone, iPad, or Android Device

I often run into people who have filled their mobile devices to the brim and want to be able to add more storage. Sometimes they just want to be able to take some stuff off of it, without it being lost forever. And sometimes they just want more storage. Sure, you can backup to the cloud these days, but people just like having a physical backup just in case. But it's hard to do that, and especially if you want something that is small, compact, and relatively secure. I've used some Wi-Fi based hard drives and flash drives, but lately I've tried some newer solutions that are even simpler.

SanDisk's iXpand Flash Drive is an interesting solution for iPhone and iPad users. It's a rectangular metal drive with a USB 2.0 connector on one side, with a built in Lightning connector on the top of the drive. Even without the Lightning connector, it's a bit larger than most flash drives, but the 32 GB drive has a variety of interesting features.

You download the iXpand app from the app store, and then use the drive to transfer photos and videos from your iPhone or iPad to the flash drive. It's pretty easy to use: From the main menu, you can just click camera sync, choose a destination (either a default name or one of your own), and click sync now. There's also an option for backing up (or restoring) your contacts from the drive, a useful addition. You can then plug the drive into a Windows PC or Mac for backup.

In addition, you can take files from your PC and copy them to the flash drive, then play them back when you are on the iPhone or iPad. This is particularly useful for video files which can quickly fill a mobile device. The iXpand drives supports the standard MPEG (.MP4) and .MOV formats along with more PC-centric ones such as .WMV and .AVI files.

You can also move the files to the My Downloads section of the iXpand app and then run the files from there (though I admit to some initial confusion as to where the files were actually residing). This is fine for viewing photos and videos and even for viewing things such as Office documents, but it doesn't let you actually open the document in Pages or Microsoft Word for editing. It even includes 128-bit encryption if you need to carry confidential information.

In general, I found the iXpand drive quite easy to use and work with, though I did run into a few minor glitches. It is supposed to automatically link you to the iTunes store for the software download; instead, I had to download it manually. It took the device a couple of minutes to organize my contacts before they were ready to backup, and it wasn't clear that I just had to wait. None of these seemed major to me, and after the first time I used it, it seemed quite simple.

A 32 GB version of the iXpand drive has a list price of $79.99, with a 16GB version at $59.99 and a 64GB version at $119.99 due out shortly. It's not inexpensive, but it is quite flexible.

For Android users (or Windows tablet users who only have a micro-USB slot), an even simpler solution may be Kingston's DataTraveler MicroDuo, a small flash drive with a full-size USB 3.0 connector on one side and a microUSB connector on the other.

On an Android device that supports USB "On-the-Go" (OTG), you can just plug in the device and view it from with the device's file structure, just as you could with built-in storage, or an expansion micro SD slot (if any). I used this with a Samsung Galaxy Note 4, and it just worked really easily, with hardly any learning curve—you can simply copy files to and from the MicroDuo just as you would with any other storage. Similarly, it worked on a Windows phone.

This solution isn't as fancy as the iXpand—there's no one-button backup or encryption, for instance. But it is a simple solution, and USB 3.0 support makes it faster than most older USB 2 drives.

The one complication is the requirement for On-The-Go and a file manager. A lot of Android devices do support the standard, including most HTC, LG, Samsung, and Sony phones and tablets—but there isn't a complete list, and it's not always clear from the description of your device. (Some earlier Nexus devices didn't support OTG, and for the Nexus 9, I had to download a third-party app to get it to recognize the drive.)

There are other solutions here. I've seen some smaller names offer USB drives, and you could get an OTG cable for any flash drive, but Kingston's solution is very compact and very simple, at a reasonable price. (I've seen the 32GB version for under $20 and the 64 GB version for around $30). And of course, all of these drives are particularly useful for devices that don't have a microSD card slot.

The bottom line is that if you're worried about running out of space on your mobile device, you now have options other than buying a new device or just uploading everything to the cloud. The MicroDuo for Android and the iXpand for Apple devices are very nice, very simple solutions to what is often a big problem.

Michael J. Miller's Forward Thinking Blog: forwardthinking.pcmag.com
Michael J. Miller is chief information officer at Ziff Brothers Investments, a private investment firm. From 1991 to 2005, Miller was editor-in-chief of PC Magazine, responsible for the editorial direction, quality and presentation of the world's largest computer publication.
Until late 2006, Miller was the Chief Content Officer for Ziff Davis Media, responsible for overseeing the editorial positions of Ziff Davis's magazines, websites, and events. As Editorial Director for Ziff Davis Publishing since 1997, Miller took an active role in...
More »